


no who cares, no vacant stares

by ElienRey



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-28
Updated: 2019-09-28
Packaged: 2020-10-29 20:21:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20802395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElienRey/pseuds/ElienRey
Summary: Essek Thelyss gets stranded with the Mighty Nein for a night. Caleb decides to tell him a story.





	no who cares, no vacant stares

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by ep 79, but set in some distant future where this might be remotely feasible. Spoilers for everything, really, but especially the Iron Shepherds arc. Title from Hozier's "From Eden".

“Are you alright?” The softly accented voice shook Essek from his reverie. Sulking, really, but he’d die rather than admit it. Turning from the fire, he met the wary, opaque gaze of Caleb Widogast. Essek wondered if the man found Essek as much of a mystery as Essek found him. He hoped so; unrequited mystification never ended well.

“I’m fine. A bit… wary of exactly what this group plans to do, but that’s not going to be my concern for much longer.” Come morning, and after a proper night’s rest, he’d be gone back to Rosohna and the numerous tasks left waiting for the Shadowhand of the Queen, none of which included babysitting the most annoying group of people he’d ever had the displeasure of meeting. 

“Ja, I am also wary. There doesn't seem to be any good options here, and a lot of bad _scheisse_ to step in.” He crossed his arms, the sleeves riding up to show fine white threads of scar tissue. Essek had noted them before whenever Caleb had carelessly rolled up a sleeve to keep it free of the expensive ink he was laboring over. He’d stored them away at the back of his mind as yet another idiosyncrasy of the Mighty Nein, with Fjord’s stunted tusks, and the chemical burns marking Nott’s hands. 

He hadn’t thought more than twice about them until he’d seen the same scars, faint and very old, almost unnoticeable compared to the fresh wounds covering the rest of her, trailing up their prisoner’s arms. Essek wanted to ask, but he already knew just enough not to. 

The silence had stretched too long. Caleb was fidgeting, perhaps wanting to move back to the firelight and his friends, but reluctant to leave the conversation hanging. 

“You know, Caleb, that no one has asked you to do any of this?” Caleb startled when Essek broke the silence, turning to half face him, eyes still turned away, always on some distant point. 

“Not explicitly, no, but we cannot do nothing, especially when, when one of us is not here.” His gaze gained focus then, scrutinizing the group gathered by the fire, Nott and Fjord in a heated argument, Beau sitting back, arms crossed, about to chime in loudly, no doubt. Jester and Caduceus sat to the side a little ways, talking quietly. Essek had never seen the tiefling so solemn, the smile she had for Caduceus strained at the edges. 

“You care so much? To risk all your lives, again and again, for a companion who will kill you without a moment’s hesitation?” The only reason Essek saw Caleb’s flinch was because he was watching for it, had gotten better at reading Caleb’s foreign body language over the past few months. His fingers spasmed against his arms, some compulsion kneading at the faint scars there.

“I will tell you a story,” he said, turning to face Essek squarely for the first time, eyes flitting to meet Essek’s for the briefest moment before landing on a spot beyond his left shoulder.

“Must you?” he drawled, trying to keep the interest from his voice. He’d heard many stories of the Mighty Nein, some even from Caleb himself, all of them disjointed, chaotic, leaving him with more questions than answers. The one thing he did know was that Caleb had never told Essek anything without an ulterior motive.

“You will like this one. There is lots of death and mayhem.”

“What exactly gave you the impression I enjoy ‘death and mayhem’?” Essek arched an offended brow, Caleb ducking his head to hide the slight curve of his lips. 

“Ah, well, then maybe you won’t enjoy it, but I will make it quick.” He paused as if waiting for Essek’s permission to continue. Essek wondered what would happen if he said no, I’m not in the mood for fireside tales, I need to make my preparations and sleep. He knew Caleb well enough by now to know he would not be offended, likely he’d make a self-deprecating remark and slink back to the fire, leaving Essek to his own precautions while he set up the tiny shelter the Mighty Nein depended on. The thought did not appeal to Essek, and he gestured for Caleb to continue.

“Some months ago, before I had learned enough of the arcane arts, we used to have to sleep out in the open. We would keep watch,” he hurried to assure Essek, “we are not completely stupid, but there are many dangers in the empire, and many more on the northern border.” Essek found his attention piqued, for the scraps of information he could glean about their enemies, but also for the tension he could feel behind Caleb’s placid tones. “One morning, Beau, and Nott, and I, and… another of our company who you have not met, we woke to find Yasha, and Jester, and Fjord gone.”

“Gone?” Essek’s eyebrows rose. It would take powerful magic to snatch three unawares from the midst of a wary mercenary group.

“My alarm spell was unbroken, there was no sign of a struggle. It was as if they had just vanished into thin air. We searched everywhere, and eventually found the place they had been taken from. Plants were broken and there was blood on the ground.”

“Who had taken them?” Essek found himself reevaluating his impressions of the Nein’s capabilities. They had proved themselves both astonishingly competent and prone to bite off more than they could chew. Now, to learn they could be taken unawares by ordinary, mortal means… either they were not as powerful as he thought, or they had progressed very far, very quickly.

Caleb, as if reading his thoughts, shot a wry smile in the direction of Essek’s shoes.

“They were not quite ordinary, although we were much less powerful then than we are now. As you shall see. We found someone on the road, a dwarf who was once a part of the group which took our friends. She told us that they were slavers and our friends would soon be broken and sold as goods.” Essek felt an involuntary breath hiss through his teeth. He was no stranger to the concept of slavery. It wasn’t encouraged by the Dynasty, but the lands and peoples the Bright Queen ruled over were diverse enough that such practices could not be effectively banned. It was the thought of any of the Nein being shackled like that, for all he’d met them in a parody of the act, which sent a frisson of unease through him. It was discordant, _wrong_.

Caleb looked up in surprise. Essek found himself internally floundering, as caught off guard by his own reaction as Caleb. He gestured for Caleb to resume his story, a twitch of his fingers dispelling Caleb’s curious gaze.

“We decided to follow them, in hopes of catching them on the road, but… we, I was not confident. There were only five of us now, and the strongest of us had been taken. The dwarf we had met on the road told us there were powerful casters among the slavers.”

“And yet you pushed on,” Essek said, thinking he knew where this story might be heading, what point Caleb might be trying to make. Caleb nodded, head jerking up and down, reminiscent of a clumsy marionette Essek remembered from childhood.

“It was a mistake,” he continued, “we tried to take them, trap them between two hills, but the only thing we succeeded in doing was trapping ourselves for the slaughter.”

“But you survived,” Essek flicked a gesture in the direction of the camp, Jester and Beau now huddled together, Jester laughing at something Beau was saying, Fjord and Caduceus sitting side by side, eyes closed, Nott watching Caleb and Essek, ears pricked, wary.

“Not all of us.” Caleb shook his head, voice cracking, not in grief, Essek thought, but some strong emotion. Guilt, perhaps. “We buried one of us in the ground that day, and we had no power, no clerics to help us. There were three left of the Nein.” Essek felt echoes of desperation in his voice.

“You could’ve abandoned them to the slavers. Very few would blame you for turning away from a fight you could not win.”

“I wanted to. It was the logical choice. I am not a good person, and while I do not care about my own life, there are things I have left undone.”

“Then what made you stay?” Essek knew the answer, but he also suspected Caleb needed to say it aloud. 

“At the time, I had no idea of my own motives. I told myself, again and again, to run, leave these, these mercenaries I’d been _using_ behind.” He took a breath, the first full one in a while. This story was not easy for him to tell. Essek wondered if he should be flattered at the effort, at the amount Caleb had been willing to share with him, feel victorious that he’d gained the trust of these fickle allies. He found he only felt tired.

“Caleb, I understand, you do not have to finish-”

“No,” he interrupted, bringing a hand up to stop any soothing Essek might attempt. “I want to tell this story. To you,” he added, as if that part was unclear. Essek wondered how much the man’s peculiarity of speech was a product of language difficulties and how much was a product of his peculiar mind. 

“Alright,” Essek drawled, unable to keep dry amusement from his tone, “perhaps we should sit down.” Caleb frowned, but followed him readily enough, seating himself next to Essek on a fallen log, still in sight of camp, but undoubtedly out of earshot. He hesitated, drawing his alarm string from a pocket to twist brutally around his fingers.

“As I said,” Essek tried yet again, “you do not have to tell me anything.” Essek knew how powerful Caleb was, how quickly he could progress with the right training, but now he saw something breakable in him, barely below the surface, or perhaps something already broken.

“We followed their trail,” Caleb resumed, ignoring the escape Essek supplied, thread pulled tight, “and we gained more allies, we found a cleric to help us. Caduceus.” He breathed the firbolg’s name as he would a savior’s. “And even though we knew it was foolish, we attacked them in their stronghold. We killed all of them, and freed the slaves they kept in cages like animals. The Mighty Nein was whole again, and we had won.” He didn’t sound victorious, he sounded angry, savage.

“That’s… admirable,” was all Essek could find to say. He’d thought he’d understood where Caleb was going with this story, but that certainty was fading in the face of Caleb’s bitter anger.

“No, that is not the point,” Caleb rubbed his forehead in frustration. “I am sorry, I’m not being clear.” He relaxed then, visibly regaining control of himself, dropping the string and peering sideways at Essek, almost coquettish. A resumption of their usual game. “I only meant we have invested a lot in each other, ja?”

“I see. Tell me, have you ever heard of the sunk cost fallacy?” Caleb let out a startled bark of laughter.

“You are probably right. But now we have power and responsibilities we didn’t have then. We can change things that need to be, stop things from happening that shouldn’t.” At Essek’s dubious look, he shrugged. “Ja, it is foolish, compared to _you_ we are nobody, powerless _bekloppte_.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” said Essek, who tried very hard never to underestimate his enemies. Or his allies. He also had no idea what a _bekloppte_ might be.

“What would you say?” Caleb leaned forward, bright spark of curiosity in his eyes. “If you were in our place? If one of your, your den had been taken, and only you could retrieve, or even cared to retrieve them?” Essek huffed a snort at his presumption, waving the questions away.

“Speculation is meaningless. If someone had asked you what you’d do in advance of the situation, would your reply have matched the reality at all?”

“No,” said Caleb, without a moment’s consideration. “But you are much smarter and more experienced than I am. And perhaps a better person too.” His lips twitched, belying the humor behind his words.

“I’m sorry, I’m afraid my talents do not extend to fortune telling.” Again, the imperceptible flinch, although this time Essek had no idea of its cause. He gentled his tone. “I think your loyalty is not a bad thing, Caleb. It may be the death of you sooner rather than later, but I cannot fault you for-” he hesitated, knowing what Caleb had been dancing around, wondered how he would react when exposed, continued anyway - “for loving your family.” 

The full body flinch could be missed by no one, and Essek wondered who had taught Caleb to fear love so much.

“Ah, well, that is good then. We are probably in enough of your bad graces. I am sorry you’re stuck here with us for the night.”

“I’ve been through worse hardships.” He gave his longest suffering sigh. Caleb’s lips quirked, about to respond, when his head jerked up, listening to something only he could hear. He subsided after a moment, the smile growing on his face. 

“Nott, I will be there in a moment.” He rose, hesitating when Essek didn't budge from his perch. “Essek-” he paused, twisting his string between two hands. “You are welcome to join us in the bubble if, if you are too tapped-”

“Thank you for the offer,” an offer that had already been made by an ebullient Jester, “but I have my own means of protection.” Caleb gave him a quick nod, as if he’d never expected anything else, and left to begin his ritual. Essek watched him as the others converged, gathering around as Caleb pulled his spellbook from its holster, sitting on the ground among them.

He watched as Jester playfully batted at Caleb’s shoulder, Beau smirked and slouched knowingly nearby, Nott sat, protective, at his side. Fjord and Caduceus stopped whatever meditating they had been doing to join the group, chatting quietly while Caleb retrieved components from his numerous jacket pockets. His lips moved with the spell, hands flying gracefully before him, eyes drifting across Essek and then settling back to meet his gaze. Essek couldn’t read his expression, but the smile, the genuine smile that split his features, was unmistakable. Essek felt his treacherous heart warming as Caleb completed the ritual, and the dome obscured the Mighty Nein from view.


End file.
